A Day in the Life of Maries
by Kirishtu
Summary: Shandris' famous trolling mage finds himself in Warsong Gulch on the receiving end of a warrior's blade. Will Maries survive, and if he does, how bad will he troll the warrior? Written for Maries.


A Day in the Life of Maries

Maries took a deep breath of forest-scented air and lifted his arms above his head until he felt the strain in his shoulders. Then he cracked his neck, a series of pops echoing in his ears from each side. Once that had been taken care of, he bounced on the balls of his feet for a moment, taking the time to look at the various members of his team. They were certainly an eclectic group - healers, damage dealers, even a Druid bear-tank - of the varying races of the Alliance. The human mage tugged on his gloves and made sure they fit snugly. There was still a minute before the madness of Warsong Gulch began, so Maries went over the checklist to check the checklist of the checklist he'd originally made. It was something to do, however tedious it was.

He looked toward the gate that stubbornly remained closed. He'd been in this battleground thousands of times before, but today he had an odd feeling in his gut that told him today's battle was going to be different somehow. Maybe the Horde would finally win. Maybe the Alliance would once more put the Horde's proverbial teeth against the curb and stomp as hard as it could. Maybe Maries would race out to the center of Warsong Gulch and face his perennial enemy, and sometimes drinking buddy, Thanatoss. Maries cracked his knuckles, made sure his water elemental was summoned, and then as soon as the gate was up, ran with a good portion of the offense out of their base and into the glaring sun.

Two seconds later, he was mounted up and booking it toward the opposite side of the vast field where the Horde base lay, probably unprotected as usual when the battle first began. The Mage watched as a horde of Horde raced along the left side of the battleground even as the Alliance raced along the right, and a few enterprising - or unlucky - members of each team met each other in battle in the direct center of the field.

Maries turned his mount around to join that middle fray, knowing somewhere it was probably a bad idea and not caring.

Spells flew as fast as swords swung. Death Knights chose targets based on who they thought was weakest on the enemy team; hunters threw power shots or ice traps down, using their deterrence ability, or just plain leaping back with the use of disengage. Warriors threw out their own kinds of fear abilities, before going into a blade storm that made everyone in range have a seriously bad day. Especially when that blade fury coincided with a rather well-placed stun ability like shadowfury or binding shot or ring of ice.

Maries was no stranger to a fray like this one. He'd been in many over his long career as being one of the better warriors the Alliance had to offer the battleground. He'd also been the cause of many a Horde's bad day when he began to spend long hours taunting them in their own Shrine, or when he began his day at Timeless Isle, and ended it at one of the Shrines in the Vale. And the end usually involved a molten guardian blowing up the interior if the chosen Shrine, and everyone in it.

A quick Blink saved his neck from being hewn from his shoulders by some enterprising Forsaken warrior. Maries turned around and began a frigid assault on the warrior, pelting that rotting form with ice bolts that tore armor and decaying flesh alike from that gaunt frame. Cursing, Maries back-pedaled, trying to get out of range of the Forsaken warrior's twin swords. It was all he could do to avoid having his guts say hello to the afternoon sun until he managed to cast a ring of frost spell that stopped the warrior dead - Ha, ha! Thought Maries - in his tracks. The Mage then unleashed everything in his arsenal at the warrior, and the Forsaken dropped into a pile of rotting flesh and bone.

Maries turned his attention then to the rest of the field to see how his team was doing. It looked like both sides had the other team's flag, so they were at an impasse until one or the other died and the flag was returned. Most of his team were scattering from the middle, racing to either catch up to the human death knight carrying the Horde's flag, or hurrying to stop the Orc shaman with the Alliance's flag from reaching the Horde base. Maries joined the latter group, chasing down the shaman in spirit wolf form, trying to stop the shaman from getting any farther down the field by throwing out a ring of frost.

He got lucky. The shaman leaped to avoid a Draenei hunter's frost trap and ended up landing right in range of Maries. The shaman yelped as his paws became entangled in ice, and then Maries was upon him, battering him with spells that stole the warmth from the shaman's furry limbs. The Mage soon had help in the form of a worgen rogue, who wasted no time in stun-locking the shaman and whittling down the orc's defenses until all that was left was a pile if shredded clothes, flesh, and a sprinkling of blood here and there.

Maries reached the Alliance flag with a quick blink and returned it with a touch. A cheer went up as the death knight captured the Horde's flag.

Maries was already running for the Horde's base, skirting the main road and instead taking the hill that led up to the top of the base. He skidded to a halt halfway up the trail, a sinking feeling in his gut.

The quick ice block saved his neck. Literally.

The sword blade caught in about two inches of solid ice was sharp enough to make air bleed. It was longer than Maries was tall, and it was held in the hands of a massive Tauren warrior, who glared at Maries as if the Mage had eaten the Tauren's first born or something.

As soon as the Tauren warrior pulled his sword free from the ice, Maries let the block drop and blinked away. Maries spun and stopped the Tauren dead in his tracks with a ring of frost and then began to pelt the warrior with freezing spells that dented the warriot's armor as much as they grew a film of ice over the steel, making the Tauren's movements sluggish, almost exaggerated. Maries back pedaled and then when the warrior stumbled, he ran the rest of the way up the hill and into the Horde base.

Maries found the main room completely empty, save for the Horde flag. Smiling, he walked toward the flag and grasped it. "Don't mind if I do."

A sword lightly touched his throat. "Drop it."

Despite the obvious threat to his life and well-being, Maries half turned and looked up at the Tauren warrior. The heavy-browed Tauren stared down his nose at the human, his eyes narrowed. Maries smiled. "What if I don't want to?"

The Tauren's blade pressed a little harder into the mage's throat. "Then you lose your head."

"But I like my head."

"Then drop the flag."

Maries' smile grew wider, and then before the Tauren realized what the Mage intended, Maries had blinked away, then began running as fast as he could to get out of range of the Tauren's heroic leap.

The earth shook beneath his feet as the Tauren landed, and the shockwave almost knocked Maries to his knees. But the Mage kept running, and out of the corner of his eye he saw a night elf priestess ride by on her night saber. Maries tried to blink again, but the Tauren was too fast this time. It was the priestess who saved him, her life grip pulling the human out of the path of that blood-thirsty blade. Maries hit the ground beside her, and they both turned and ran for the safety of their base.

Maries made it; the priestess didn't.

The Tauren caught up to them lighting fast - or so it felt - and his blade whipped through the priestess' middle, shearing her in half. Blood and guts sprayed against Maries' heels as he ran into the tunnel and he heard the Tauren bellow angrily behind him. He reached the flag room of the Alliance base seconds after the enemy flag carrier was taken out, and he captured the Horde flag in one breath and fled the room the next. Maries ducked around the corner and pressed himself against the wall, casting his invisibility spell.

The heavy clomp of hooves filled his hearing, then the snorting of the Tauren as he looked around. Maries pressed himself deeper into the shadows on the side of the door he was hiding behind, and waited.

The Tauren warrior stepped out of the flag room with the Alliance flag. He looked right at Maries; his nostrils flared as if he could smell the human. Maries held his breath. After a moment's pause the Tauren started to run. Maries counted to five, then dropped his invisibility spell and unleashed a flurry of attacks on the warrior, freezing him in place. The Tauren didn't even have time to use his spell reflect ability before Maries' ice overwhelmed him. The Tauren warrior tried to leap toward Maries, or maybe leap away, but Maries cast one final spell that caught the warrior in the throat. The Tauren dropped, and Maries grabbed the flag from the corpse.

With a swagger, the human Mage returned the Alliance flag to its place in their base, and heard a low whistle come from outside the room. A moment later, the human death knight who'd originally captured the Horde flag stepped into the room, looked at Maries, then pointed to the hall. "You do that?"

"Yup."

"Do you even know who that is?"

"No," replied Maries. "Should I?"

"His name's Hellwolf. He's like one of the greatest warriors the Horde has to offer."

Maries couldn't help it. He began to laugh so hard that his sides hurt and it took him quite a few minutes to catch his breath. "I've fought warriors a thousand times better than him! I fought Thanatoss, and that's one Orc warrior you don't mess with."

"I heard-"

"You saw what he did to them on the Isle of Conquest?"

If it were possible, the death knight paled even more. There was also a measure of respect on his eyes that hadn't been there before. "You know he's gonna come back gunning for you."

Maries grinned. "He'll have to catch me first."

The death knight gave a little shrug, then turned and left Maries in the flag room. When Maries had calmed himself down a bit, he skipped out of the flag room and entered the field. There were pockets of fighting going on here and there, so Maries picked one group, blinked over there, and time warped for the hell of it. His spells tore holes in the Horde and he was successful on getting a few killing blows on some.

Then the earth shook as if plagued by an earthquake. Maries looked up and felt blood drain from his face. The death knight hadn't been lying when he'd told Maries that Hellwolf would be honing in on him; the warrior was blowing past easier targets and was charging straight for Maries, sword raised for a cut that would cleave the Mage in two.

He barely had time to think. Maries immediately blinked backwards, toward the Alliance base. He set off a series of spells that crashed hard into the Tauren's chest plate but did little to slow his momentum. Like a runaway goblin racer, that Tauren kept moving, no matter what was thrown at him.

Maries ducked inside the base and cast his invisibility spell again. Or tried to. Hellwolf was suddenly in the doorway, swinging his sword at Maries' chest. The Mage threw himself backwards, and his water elemental began to cast its assault on the warrior. It gave Maries time to get to his feet to try and put distance between them, but Hellwolf's eyes were focus on him and he was completely ignoring the water elemental in favor of the human.

Each step the warrior made sounded like a death toll for Maries. The human Mage scrambled, casting spell after spell, casting slowing spells of Hellwolf and using his ring of ice ability to tangle his feet. Maries felt his back crash into the wall and had no where else to go, and had no time to do anything else. Hellwolf loomed above him and raised his blade for a killing blow.

The sword buried itself into stone as Maries blinked away.

Hellwolf turned and with a snarl unbecoming of a Tauren launched himself after Maries. His mistake, though, had been already made, and it was a crime punishable to the highest degree. And that mistake was putting Maries on the defensive, and allowing him time to put aside the panic and fear and go into full arena mode.

Hellwolf didn't know what hit him first.

The ice clutched at his hooves, preventing him from going anywhere. Then the missiles began pounding him from every direction. Every time he tried to turn to catch Maries, the Mage was moving, and when he did stop, it was only to cast mirror images. When Hellwolf finally got free, he attacked one image, then another, and then the third. All the while, the real Maries began to pound on him, building up to his most powerful spells. Hellwolf let out a roar of frustration and swung his sword hard enough to bury it once more in stone, and this time Maries didn't even give him a chance to retrieve it. The ice struck him from all sides, pounding dents into his armor, tearing the skin beneath. Blood ran into his eyes, obscuring his vision. One arm hung limply.

The Tauren's knees finally buckled. He hit the ground hard and struggled to stand. He looked up and saw Maries standing there, an odd smile on his face. The Mage raised his hand and cast a flurry of spells that slammed into the Tauren's prone form, knocking him onto his back and eventually pinning him to the ground.

Hellwolf lay there, panting, even as the horns sounded the Alliance victory in Warsong. Maries stood over him - just inches out of reach - and smiled at him. Then the Mage raised his hand, and the next thing the Tauren knew, he was polymorphed into a sheep, and Maries was striding off the battlefield, whistling a merry tune.


End file.
